Read Novel Full Chapter 1036: Fire Fist
Chapter 1036: Fire Fist
A final burst propelled him downward, and all three sons looked up...
Teral’s heart stopped.
He saw eyes.
Cold.
Emotionless.
Death itself had put on a skin of fire.
"Mommy..." he whimpered.
And then...
The fire-wreathed fist came down.
An explosion detonated across the coliseum. It was the wrath of a falling sun itself. The arena ruptured under the impact. Stone erupted in all directions while a magma-like light swallowed everything around itself in a roaring inferno.
The newly restored protective barriers shattered in layers, one after another, until only a single layer remained.
High above, in the royal balcony, Queen Morgana’s eyes lit up.
Below her, the court mages were already drenched in sweat, hands trembling as they fed their mana into the faltering defenses. Even the archmage among them had gone pale, teeth gritted, lips moving in frantic incantation.
It wasn’t enough.
The last layer wavered.
That was when Morgana’s mind reached into her pocket ring and summoned an item right into her palm.
A flash of silver-blue.
Her staff materialized with a sound of newly formed frost. It was a slender thing. Simple, elegant, capped with a single, dark amethyst that pulsed with dominant arcane power.
She raised it with one hand and, without ceremony, poured her mana into the barrier.
The jewel flared to life, and the barrier shuddered, stabilized, then solidified. A cold sheen spread across its surface, as the frost-like sigils bloomed all over it due to Morgana’s essence anchoring it in place.
And all the while, her expression remained unmoved.
Not a twitch of alarm. Not a flicker of concern.
Only that same cold, detached calm. Though her eyes...
Down below, Teral Vexmore didn’t even get to scream.
The moment of impact obliterated his footing. His armored form was crushed into the earth, making him appear akin to a nail that was hammered into its final location.
Plates of enchanted alloy warped and bent as if made of wet bark. One gauntlet burst off his arm entirely. The next instant, his ribs collapsed beneath Quinlan’s burning knuckles.
But that wasn’t what broke him.
It was the eyes.
Through it all, through the fire, through the pain, through the fury... Those eyes never left his. They were cold. Unflinching. Empty of all mercy. He saw no rage, no triumph, no purpose. ŔáƝ𝙤𝖇Ɛs
Just death.
A force of nature given form.
A devil made flesh.
And Teral knew; this was where his story ended.
But just as the thought materialized in his head...
Just as the fist closed the final distance, as impact became inevitable... The eyes changed.
Something twisted beneath the void broke through, rearing its visage.
Not anger. Not wrath.
But a cruel, deliberate awareness.
The kind of look a predator gave a trapped animal it decided would be used for more than mere sustenance. That prey would be used for personal enjoyment.
The eyes Teral was seeing now shone with a personal, sadistic desire to torment him.
And in that moment, as the blow landed and his world became agony, Teral realized...
He wasn’t going to be killed.
No.
It was going to be worse.
His body buckled. His thoughts splintered. Bone tore through skin. Armor shattered. Blood sprayed from his body.
And just as the world slipped from him, just as his vision collapsed inward and darkness crept from the corners of his mind, a ding rang in his head.
[You have been defeated by the Primordial Subjugator.]
[Your fate now belongs to him. All you ever were, all you ever will be, is his to command.]
...
High above the devastation, past the smoke and ruptured stone, past the remnants of shattered barriers, King Alexios did not look at the crater below.
He was watching his wife.
Others might not have noticed the change. The frost-like sigils blooming on the reinforced barrier still shone brilliantly with her essence. Her posture remained poised. Her expression, as ever, was cold. Regal. Controlled.
But he saw it.
Beneath the surface of that still, unflinching face... he saw ’it.’
She was excited.
More than he’d seen her in the last century. Possibly longer.
Her fingers, usually resting lightly on the armrest, now curled into the fabric as if they were talons. A shiver ran down her back, so faint it was almost imperceptible... unless you knew her. Unless you were watching.
And Alexios had been watching her for four hundred years.
Her heart, he could tell, was pounding.
It began slowly, beautifully, with her lips twitching at the corners. A smile, soft and breathless, the kind worn by lovers in candlelight.
Then it grew.
Her eyes widened, pupils dilating, swirling as something primal stirred within. The smile sharpened, stretched, teeth appearing in full. She tilted her head, and a delighted little laugh escaped her.
Mania bloomed on her features.
"He cast without incanting again..." she whispered with a tone that was akin to confessing a sin to the Goddess. Her voice trembled with hunger. "One time can be luck, a fluke brought upon by an intense situation and extreme mastery over one’s class. But doing so again in such a short time window...?"
Her hands trembled as they rose to her cheeks, dainty fingers pressing into pale skin now tinged with flushed crimson. Her breathing quickened as the swirling of her crazed eyes increased in speed.
"The only ones who can cast like that, on demand, are the immortals, such as that devious foxkin woman, Yoruha."
Her tone turned envious at the name. Insanely so.
"It’s not just their age... No... It’s what they became. When they gained eternity, their minds lost something... A mortal limit, a boundary we don’t even realize exists until it’s gone."
She turned in her throne as her regal posture broke, and she leaned forward toward where Quinlan stood, not even seeing her husband and family anymore. Her whole mind was focused on one thing and one thing only: the theory unraveling inside her skull.
"My research hints that when that piece of mortality breaks... the newly created immortal gains clarity, enjoying more seamless thought. Their spellcasting no longer starts at their lips. It starts before thought finishes forming. That’s why mortals fail. We simply lack the capability."
"But... sometimes..."
She was shaking now.
"Sometimes, in moments of perfect stress, when the mind is pushed past its limits..."
"We taste it. The flow-state. Transcendence. For a moment... Our minds transcend."
Her voice thinned into breathless gasps.
"I want to study him..."
She began to giggle.